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+3/+4/+5 Tome tracker/drop locations guide

This guide is the combined efforts of hundreds of players, and also has includes developer confirmation on many aspects of the tome distribution, thus should be very accurate. There are however often anomalies in this game, so if you find something that you can prove and doesn't mesh with the data here, please reply and I'll try to keep this as up to date as possible.

Recent Developer confirmation:

Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun

Previous (~U14):
Both. They're in random loot in very high level tables, right where you'd expect to see them given the interval between +1, +2, and +3 tomes- they continue that same pattern.
-----Recent (U16):
In Update 16, which is currently on Lamannia, +3 tomes appear in level 23-26 treasure, and +4 tomes appear in level 27+ treasure.
-----Droprates:
Currently on Live (Edit: Referring to U15), every item generated in a chest has a 1 in 434 chance of being an ability score tome.
In Update 16, those odds are increased to 1 in 333.
The new Upgrade tomes will be a sizable percentage of all ability tome drops- for example, when a +4 tome would drop, it will instead have a 25% chance of being a +4 to +5 upgrade tome.

Same goes for +3 tomes (which will drop in treasure chests of level 23-26): 25% of them will be a +3 to +4 upgrade tome.

In addition, bound to account upgrade tomes can now drop as of U16. They drop in the same levels as the regular tomes, at lower rate (25% of the normal chance), and offer a +1 upgrade over what youd normally get. You must have a matching upgrade tome for an already used ability tome to use it.
Loot levels:
15 - 22: +2 to +3 upgrade tomes
23 - 26: +3 to +4 upgrade tomes
27 - 31: +4 to +5 upgrade tomes
In addition, anywhere a +2/3/4 tome would previously drop, can now drop the upgrade versions. Even non standard loot table areas like raids which offer BTC tomes. The upgrade tomes will always be BTA also, regardless of source.

Loot lvl27 in a regular quest without loot bonuses is not currently possible. Though you can hit this level of loot in EE Caught in the Web Raid (lvl27) and by using various loot boost such as:
- +1/+2 Loot Jewels (From Eberron Shards or DDO Store)
- +1 from Treasure Maps (Found in Three Barrel Cove end rewards and some chests)
- +1 from a chest blesser (Common name for a player character who has the feat: Greater Dragonmark of Finding)
- +1 to 3 from a global loot bonus (Turbine occasionally enables these, usually on weekends)

Note: There are reports showing that the Dragonmark of Finding may not be functional currently. The other boost are confirmed to function on most chests, but not end rewards.

* While in 99.9% of cases quest level = loot level, it seems some lvl22 quests consistently have +2s, while others have +3s. The developers can set plus or minus bonuses to individual chests, so this is likely the case, however they very rarely do. Some known cases:
- Any "Epic!" non-raid chest (Ebberon only content), most/all of these are set to +1 loot
- VoN2 and Lords of Dust has +1 loot for all it's chests (Confirmed +3 tomes in lvl22 EH versions)
- VoN6 sidechest - not the epic chest, appears to be at least loot level27+ on all epic difficulties
- Most Epic Raid end rewards are at least +1 loot
- Most "Solo" difficulty quests are at least -2 loot
- Casual difficulty is listed as -1 loot level. Not confirmed if this is in addition to the fact the actual quest level is reduced or not.

Note: These level ranges have been verified via many reports post U14. So to disprove the above range, please post a screenshot of a chest - not end reward, and include the xp report for quest lvl. No further reports of +3 tomes in lvl23+ chests are necessary, it's safe to say its 100% confirmed at this point.

Anyways onto the guide for the static, non loot table related drops (AKA Bonus loot - EG you can get one of these tomes in addition to any random loot that will appear, and any loot bonuses will have no affect on these drops):

+4 Unbound Tomes from Bonus Loot:Post U14 Epic Raids:
- Caught in the Web (EN and EH, all chests. EE has a very small chance at +5 BTC.)
--- Additionally its 20th end reward has a small chance of having one. Reports indicate the 20th reward version is BTC.
- The Fall of Truth (EN and EH, large raidloot chest only. EE has a very small chance at +5 BTC in the main chest, the side chests can drop random +4s on EE since it's level27.)
--- Additionally its 20th end reward has a small chance of having one. Reports indicate the 20th reward version is BTC.Forgotten Realms Epic Elite Quests:Note: These only drop on epic elite as "bonus loot" - not loot table drops, for all of these quests. Being separate bonus loot, they are not affected by loot bonuses, and can't appear while ransacked.
- Impossible Demands - Saving all the prisoners chest (very hard to get on EE)
- Unquiet Graves - End chest
- Battle for Eveningstar - End chest
- Don't Drink the Water - End chest
- House of Broken Chains - Draegloth matron optional chest
- House of Rusted Blades - Matron and Priestess optional chests
- House of Death Undone - Matron optional chest
- The Portal Opens - Slavemaster optional chest
- Trial By Fury - Shufarix and End chests
--- Likely all chests in this quest can drop them, the others are unconfirmed for now though.
- Deal and the Demon - Secret spider side chest and end chest
U15 Quests (Druids Deep Pack):
- Any chest on EE
U16 Quests (High Road Pack)
- Any chest on EE
U17 Quests (Epic Gianthold)
- None confirmed yet

Other:
- During Festivult, the Jester of Festivult has an extremely small chance of rewarding you an unbound one for a gold coin.

Didn't think to screenshot it but got an unbound +3 wis tome from epic hard Von 3 end reward. No idea
what loot level that is but I had no gems running (I assume they don't effect end rewards anyhow though).

no, I dont have Screenshots, but I've had guildies pull +4 Unbound Tomes in the new stuff and they were NOT on Epic Elite. Deal with the Demon scored one a +4 CHR and another guildy pulled not one but 2 +4 Dex tomes so far....

Perhaps they had Loot gems going......

Also, BTC +4 tomes do still drop in the Sulo chest in "Devil you Know"

no, I dont have Screenshots, but I've had guildies pull +4 Unbound Tomes in the new stuff and they were NOT on Epic Elite. Deal with the Demon scored one a +4 CHR and another guildy pulled not one but 2 +4 Dex tomes so far....

Perhaps they had Loot gems going......

Also, BTC +4 tomes do still drop in the Sulo chest in "Devil you Know"

ToD added.

other stuff - far too vague and conflicts with all reports and developer response.

other stuff - far too vague and conflicts with all reports and developer response.

Does not conflict at all' Heres what FoS said. in regards to +4 Tomes.

Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun

Both. They're in random loot in very high level tables, right where you'd expect to see them given the interval between +1, +2, and +3 tomes- they continue that same pattern.
Then they're also in Forgotten Realms non-raid quests on Epic Elite difficulty as bonus treasure that will occasionally appear.
+4 tomes are in the raid, Caught in the Web, on any difficulty, while Epic Elite also has [REDACTED], which I'm sure many of you have already guessed.

He quite clearly states that +4 tomes are in his loot tables. and there are EXTRA/BONUS chances to see them on Epic Elite difficulties. We can all assume he "REDACTED" +5 Tomes and I would assume those would be exclusively EPic Elite.

Deal and the Demon, what chest?

Wasnt with him, but he linked it in guild chat. Unbound +4 CHR Tome. He had just finished the quest (Epic Hard) when he linked it so I assume it was the end chest.

Does not conflict at all' Heres what FoS said. in regards to +4 Tomes.

He quite clearly states that +4 tomes are in his loot tables. and there are EXTRA/BONUS chances to see them on Epic Elite difficulties. We can all assume he "REDACTED" +5 Tomes and I would assume those would be exclusively EPic Elite.

He was also clear that the progression follows the standard curve. EG : +4 tomes may appear in loot table lvl 31.

Deal and the Demon on EH does not have loot table lvl 31.

The redacted part, was specificly refering to Caught in the Web on EE.. Read his post more carefully.

So some random info, from a friend of a friend, linked from somewhere, or something, maybe, perhaps.. isn't going to make the guide atm. Screenshot or it didnt happen for impossible sounding things such as that.

He was also clear that the progression follows the standard curve. EG : +4 tomes may appear in loot table lvl 31.

I havent seen any dev confirm your assumed chart of tome drops levels.

Deal and the Demon on EH does not have loot table lvl 31.

and yet I know +4 tomes have dropped there.

The redacted part, was specificly refering to Caught in the Web on EE.. Read his post more carefully.

where exactly did what I said conflict with this statement?

So some random info, from a friend of a friend, linked from somewhere, or something, maybe, perhaps.. isn't going to make the guide atm. Screenshot or it didnt happen for impossible sounding things such as that.

I'm pretty sure that +3 unbound can be in the end rewards list for any epic quest. I got a +3 str in my end rewards for one of the Faerun quests (been too long to remember for sure, but I know it was out there).

Also, the majority of +2s that I have received in my DDO life, have been via Von 3's end reward. Even on elite, and even if the end rewards were based off of what setting you completed the quest on back when I received these, it would still not add up to 15+.

Your level guide is wrong. +2s do not drop in Gianthold Elite walkups without a gem, I've had +1s in Trial By Fire elite farming (and I don't run that quest enough times to hit ransack penalties because I get bored of it before then).

OTOH +2s drop in elite Orchard now (since U12 actually), so I'm confident that 16 is the cutoff point.

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